"Initially, ANIMAL MAN was conceived as a four-issue miniseries [...] however, I was asked to continue the series into a regular monthly comic book [...] Having no desire to produce yet another grittily realistic exploration of what it is to be superhuman and/or an urban vigilante with emotional problems, I cast desperately around for a new direction. What I finally came up with was 'The Coyote Gospel,' which became the template for the further development of the series [...] Hilariously enough, during [its] writing [...] I was utterly convinced that what I was writing was absolute unreadable gibberish and that it would hammer the final nail into the coffin of my fledgling career as a writer of American super-hero comics. The success and popularity of the story took me entirely by surprise and encouraged me to go on to produce the entirely unreadable gibberish which has since become my stock-in-trade."--Grant Morrison, Introduction to Animal Man TPB vol. 1, 1991

'The “crisis” is now the default superhero storytelling mode. Every comic book hero — TV heroes too, like “Doctor Who” — must inevitably, relentlessly, repeatedly face a dedicated threat to his or her very essence and core. It’s no longer sufficient to commit a weird sort of crime in Gotham City; any given baddie has to gnaw at the very roots of Batman’s being, fuck up the private lives of his friends and relatives, make him doubt his raison d’etre, set his postal district on fire and blow up his cave. Poor old Batman seems to lurch from one apocalyptic life-ruin epic to another these days with barely a pause for breath, making me long for the days when he jumped around at night helping people or solving mysteries that didn’t lead to some aeons-spanning plot by the ultimate villain to do the ultimate Bad Thing. And the Caped Crusader’s not the only perma-victim of the Ebola-like “crisis” epidemic. For a while it was genuinely thrilling to watch our heroes facing such directly focused threats to their meaning and relevance, but now the “crisis” approach, where every day is “The Day Evil Won,” is beginning to feel like another grim, played-out sales strategy with diminishing creative returns.' -- Grant Morrison

"I've known Joe [Casey] for years and we're both devotees of the King and his Kosmos, but Captain Victory marks our first collaboration and our first chance to indulge in some Kirby-related celestial hi-jinks together. You know the drill, space soldiers; Don't ask! Just buy!" - Grant Morrison

"There is a moment that occurs in the history of any artistic medium that truly defines it. This is one of those moments. Our sixth issue is the reason Johannes Gutenberg birthed his culture-altering invention. In the face of what we've accomplished here, even sliced bread can suck it. And on top of the massive creative achievement of having all these artists contributing to this issue, we'll also -- once and for all -- make explicit the conceptual connection that Kirby himself only hinted at in his run. The true history of Captain Victory will finally be revealed! It's all-new and it's all-gods, not to mention exposing the dark side of Victory's origins. Retailers worldwide should order big and order often." - Joe Casey

"I was reading the early Spider-Man stuff when I was researching my book, and remember how Stan Lee used to talk the readers? He would say ‘you may hate long-underwear characters, but our Spidey’s a little bit different.' The comic was actually having a conversation, and I thought ‘what if he used hypnotic induction?’" -- Grant Morrison, on the thinking behind Ultra Comics

"I love what Gail Simone (especially) and other writers have done to empower the Wonder Woman concept but I must admit I’ve always sensed something slightly bogus and troubling at its heart. When I dug into the roots of the character I found an uneasy melange of girl power, bondage and disturbed sexuality that has never been adequately dealt with or fully processed out to my mind. I’ve always felt there was something oddly artificial about Wonder Woman, something not like a woman at all.

Having said that, I became quite fascinated by these contradictions and problems and tried to resolve them for what turned into a different project entirely. Partly because I didn’t want to use any of that new material in Final Crisis, I relegated Wonder Woman to a role that best summed up my original negative feelings about the character. My apologies to her fans and I promise to be a little more constructive next time around."

"Of course I’m aware of a perpetual and chronic discontent from a particular jaded minority on the internet but I try to overlook their constant expressions of dissatisfaction on the grounds that it’s depressing and often personally abusive.

Surely part of the fun of comics includes following stories across titles? If you like comics, what’s so awful about buying another one to see what happens next? And if you don’t want to buy it, don’t bother. Do something else. Buy cigarettes or booze or bananas. I don’t know!"

"Every time I read about the agonizing pains of ‘event fatigue’ or how ‘3-D hurts my head…’ or how something’s ‘incomprehensible’ when most people are ‘comprehending’ it just fine, it’s like visiting a nursing home. ‘Events’ in superhero comic books FATIGUE you? I’m speechless. Admittedly they do tend to be a little more exciting than the instruction leaflets that come with angina pills but… ‘fatigue’?

Superhero comics should have an ‘event’ in every panel! We all know this instinctively. Who cares ‘how?’ as long as it feels right and looks brilliant ?"

"There’s both a grandeur and suffocatingly cold beauty to the world when the Nazis end up taking over the planet. Grant postulated that such a future would represent the end of art, culture and social progress so he must have felt my style encapsulated that feeling perfectly." -- Jim Lee

'On a narrower wavelength, it might also cast a jaded eye on how lessons learned from the leftist, deconstructionist “realistic” superhero stories of the 1980s were assimilated and re-tooled to create post-9/11 Marvel Studios-style “realistic” super-soldiers and champions of the Military/Industrial complex.

'Otherwise, it tells the Twilight Zone-ish story of a man’s life in a series of backward jumps through time—from his assassination as U.S. President on the first page to the traumatic boyhood event on the last page that explains everything we’ve just read in the 38 pages in between.' -- Grant Morrison

"I tried to think 'what would Pixar do with this concept?' We tried to create a really nice, complete adventure that says everything about Captain Marvel that's pure and great and non-ironic." -- Grant Morrison

"Grant mentioned it to me as this is the 'All-Star Superman' for Shazam/Captain Marvel." -- Cameron Stewart

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